Your Affiliate Marketing Spring Cleaning List

Next Tuesday, March 20th is officially the first day of spring. While the weather has felt much like summer here in Kansas City (we skipped winter) it’s time to take a look at business and do some spring cleaning. Since the end of March is also the end of quarter one (for the physical year) you should first evaluate your revenue/expenses and see how profitable you are compared to quarter four. If you’re big into promoting holiday offers, it’s likely you’re profits have slid a bit, but if there is a major difference you should evaluate what changed. If you captured those holiday leads (I hope you did) you can cross market them as long as you don’t get crazy with it. Don’t be the aggressive pitchman. Be the helpful resource.

After you’ve looked at the financial numbers, you need to ensure 2011 is closed out for you. Hopefully by now you have all your tax information ready and can file your return on time (today or April 15th for most corporations). If you increased your profits in 2011 from 2010 you’ll probably owe Uncle Sam some money (assuming you pay quarterly estimates). If you don’t have it done yet, get on the ball so you’re not blind sided with a HUGE tax payment due with little time to prepare.

Accounting aside, take a look at your domains you’re currently running traffic to. Ensure all of your SSL certificates, WHOIS guard subscriptions, etc. are still active. It’s possible that somewhere along the line a subscription could have rolled over so you want to make sure all of this is properly attended too. If you have landing pages still live that you’re currently not running traffic too, I recommend parking the domain and monetizing it with a service such as SEDO.

Take a look at the scripts on your server. All they all updated? Un-updated scripts makes your entire server vulnerable to attacks that could potentially take your entire business down. Don’t make the stupid mistake of having an old WordPress install or similar.

Go through all of your traffic sources and ensure old campaigns are either paused or deleted. Believe it or not, I’ve actually had “paused” Facebook ads magically turn live. Nothing more disheartening than logging into your account seeing you sent $2,000 to a generic affiliate network redirect offer (talking from experience). If you have funds in an advertising account you’re not using, move those back over to your bank account so they can be properly invested.

If your business is cash heavy, now is a good time to make some contributions to an IRA (or similar) account. You always want to be saving for that rainy day and ensuring you’re getting the most return from your money. Don’t go buying that $100K car if your portfolio of investments is less than that amount.

Now that spring is in the air, it’s time to make sure your campaigns are locked and loaded to send your profits into overdrive. I’ve always made excellent money in the spring/summer time and it looks to continue this year. Make sure you get your spring cleaning done quickly so you don’t take up much needed time to diversify and get ready for the upcoming months!